


Casual Knittings of Nicholas St. North

by japastiel



Series: étoiles dans les yeux [9]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: BlackIce, Christmas, Christmas Sweaters, Fluff, Goldenfrost, Holiday, M/M, Ugly Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/japastiel/pseuds/japastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Koz get gifts from North.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casual Knittings of Nicholas St. North

It was no secret that Jack loved winter. He loved the snow, hot chocolate, Christmas lights and giving presents. The holidays had arrived at the Frost-Pitchiner household early, Koz started decorating and humming Christmas tunes right after Halloween. Jack rolled his eyes but secretly loved it. He had already picked out and stashed the gifts he had for Koz and Emily. By the time Thanksgiving had arrived the entire house looked like Santa's workshop had exploded inside.

Surprisingly Christmas was Koz's second favorite holiday, not that anyone visiting after November first would be able to tell. Proof of the insanity could be found by passing up the thousands of twinkly lights outside, the enormous shiny wreath decking the front door, meeting the 12 foot live evergreen standing proud with all its perfectly placed lights, tinsel, ornaments and candy canes and being bombarded with the smell of at least twenty Christmas cookie candle, at least one in every room. What really topped it all off were the bedrooms. Koz had Christmas sheets, blankets and even shower curtains. Jack groaned every time he looked at the gaudy sparkly plastic monstrosity hanging in the bathroom. There were sparkly, jingling knickknacks in every corner. 

Jack did however love the Pitchiner family traditions that Koz shared with him. He even made Jack his own monogrammed stocking that hung with Koz's and Emily's over the fireplace, right under the snow globes that Koz's mother had collected from her world travels; but the best piece was the quilt that his great grandmother had stitched by hand with two of his great aunts. It was really cozy and perfect for two to snuggle while watching cheesy Christmas movies. Koz loved to tell the story of how they had taken years to gather Christmas material from family members to stitch the enormous thing together. Each patch had a story and Jack ate up everything Koz would tell him late at night over mugs of cocoa or hot apple cider. Jack finally had a family and Christmas-time really reminded him of that.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jack was cleaning up shop with Aster and Nick mid-afternoon on the 23rd of December, heaters blasting at the edge of the garage, keeping everything warm while they watched a light snow drift through the windows in the garage doors. Nick barreled in carrying four huge metallic Christmas bags. Jack and Aster exchanged suspicious glances, they never gave gifts at work.  
"Come! I have gifts for you both!"

He shoved two of the packages at each of them. North loved Christmas. Even though the shop wasn't exactly the best place for decorations, Nick managed to sneak in a Christmas tree into the office, have a constant supply of Christmas spice cookies and holiday coffee. Candy canes would also randomly appear on shelves and the jingle bells hanging above the door started wearing on everyone's last nerve. Aster had wanted to cut the blasted thing down, but Nick wouldn't have any of it.

"Aw, Nick, you didn't have to get us anything," Aster scratched at a spot behind his ear.

Jack smiled weakly, he hadn't got anything for Nick either.

"Nonsense! I see you both tomorrow at Christmas Eve party, come, celebrate, do some shots with me," he nudged Jack with his elbow, and winked, "that is all I am needing from either of you!"

He waved them off and slid into his large leather jacket. 

Aster shot him a lopsided smile, "Course mate, see you tomorrow."

All three piled out into the snow helping Nick lock everything down and headed off into the snowy roads home.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jack put the gifts in the passenger side of his truck, poking at them at each red light. Soft. No noises. Nothing breakable. Not vodka then. Damn. The stuff that Nick made himself was the best, although the batch his Nana had sent over from Russia had been so good Jack hadn't realized how strong it was until he passed out and woke up the next day with the worst hangover of his life. Nick had told him to slow down, but no, Jack drank like he did everything: large, in charge and usually without thinking ahead. Koz did like to remind him in the morning what an ass he had made of himself. The pictures of him wearing Emily's old ballet tutu were still somewhere. Koz said he kept them as a reminder to Jack as to why he shouldn't drink in excess, but really they were just superb blackmail.

Jack slid his truck into the driveway, and nearly walked over every ice patch from the driveway to the door. He kicked his boots off at the door, peeking past the tree to find Koz snuggled into the quilt watching claymation cartoons of Santa and Rudolph. The cold wood floor reminded him that he should get the electric socks from QVC, because electrical fires on his feet be damned, wet cold feet sucked. He bent over the sofa and pecked Koz on the lips. 

"Hey Kozzy, brought you somethin'"

He obscured the view of the Rudolph flying across the sky with the huge red gift bag.

 

"Nick got you a present, I got one too."

He dangled his from his index finger, grinning while shuffling Koz over making room on the sofa. 

Koz's eyes lit up and quickly ripped the card open with their names scrawled on the front.

"You really are like a kid in a candy shop, thirty-eight going on twelve."

Koz glowered, "It's Christmas," Koz poked the card corner into Jack's chest, "you have no room to talk. You're the one that started the snowball fight after you convinced everyone to go sledding last weekend. My tail bone is still bruised."

"Hey, I had nothing to do with you falling on your ass. That was all you and your gentile dancer footing on ice."

Jack sniggered and read the open card over Koz's shoulder.

 

KOZMOTIS AND JACK!

GLAD TIDINGS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE GIFTS I HAVE MADE FOR YOU! MAYBE YOU COULD WEAR THEM TO CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY TOMORROW EVENING IF YOU LIKE! THEY SHOULD BE WARM ENOUGH EVEN FOR THE OUTSIDE!

IF YOU BOTH CAN MAKE IT TO PARTY IT IS AT MY HOUSE AT 7PM AS USUAL. WE WILL HAVE NOG, BEER AND OF COURSE VODKA. I HAVE THE GOOD STUFF FROM NAN THIS YEAR (IT IS THE SPECIAL KIND YOU LIKE MOST, JACK!) OTHERWISE IT IS BYOB!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

NICK ST.NORTH

 

Jack and Koz exchanged worried looks before slowly removing the tissue paper.

Jack whispered into the bag. "Hell yes to the Vodka, but please be something normal..." 

Koz beat him to the bottom of the tissue, revealing the most hideous shade of orange wool yarn, woven into a petite cowl neck sweater. Across the front, baby blue and neon yellow deer pranced through white snowflakes and forest green trees. Tiny red and green jingle bells were stitched to every edge.

"Well," Jack stifled a laugh, "it's...colorful. And drunk me will be able to find you anywhere." Jack plucked at the jingly sleeve cuff. 

Koz looked horrified, crinkling up his nose, "Revolting."

Jack's doubled over laughing when Koz lifted it up and the bottom jingly edge barely brushed his upper abdomen. 

"Least he knows how to spell your name right, even if he forgot you aren't a belly dancing elf." Jack choked out between giggles.

"Wha-" Koz looked horrified as he saw his name stitched in cursive with silvery thread around the already unsightly neck line.

"Shut it Jack-ass. Let's see yours then." he nodded at Jack's halfway opened gift. Koz dropped the orange sweater into a heap with a final clattery rattle.

Jack tossed out the last of his tissue paper and pulled up a deep teal sweater long enough to be a dress. Not only was it long, but it was wide with sleeves at least half a foot too long. Neon green snowflakes adorned the too-wide v-neck and below that was the worst sweater design Jack had ever seen. A small switch was inside, once pushed lit up creepy bright green eyes of two fluffy sparkly grey kittens crawling out of a lopsided fuchsia Christmas box. 

"Fucking hell. Mine has lights. My name is in bright pink. What the fuck. He has to be pranking us. This is a joke. These aren't even Christmas colors." Jack picked at some of the edges where the wool had already started to pill. "And I think he used himself for all the measurements on mine."

Jack inspected the inside workings of his sweater more. Koz pushed the button, attempting to turn the LED eyes off, "oh, they strobe. even better."

Jack cringed, "yeah, that isn't creepy." 

"You have sickly colored strobe eyed kittens and I got the midriff-bearing jingle hell orange."

"I'm starting to think Nick might be color blind." Jack turned the flickering eyes off and folded the giant tunic. 

"You sure he isn't just blind?" Koz stuffed both sweaters back into a single bag and dropped them to the floor.

"I can't believe he wants us to wear those tomorrow." Jack looked disgusted and horrified.

"We can't leave the house in them." Koz turned back to the television, Rudolph was over and something else cheery had started.

"So, stuff them in the backseat and we can put them on before we go in. I'm sure Aster and his wife got the same thing. So we won't look like complete idiots alone."

"You think he would be sore if I didn't wear mine?" Koz peeked back at the offensive sweaters.

"Uh yeah, and if I'm wearing mine, you have to wear yours, jingle bells and all."

"Fuck."

"Yeah. And at least you don't have the chance of ending up with an electrical fire on your chest."

Koz frowned, "Well, if you didn't get too burned, it wouldn't really be all that tragic."

Jack play punched at Koz and ended up crawling over and cuddling into his long arms. Arms that wouldn't get covered by the too-short jingle sleeves. Jack sighed. Tomorrow was going to be horrifying and hilarious.


End file.
